Lions and Tigers and Bears and ELEPHANTS

We are in an Internet cafe right now, and don't have our cameras...but I think it is noteworthy to say that we have finally ridden an elephant. Today we went to the Chiang Mai Elephant Conservation Center where Thailand has a big school/hospital for elephants. There we rode elephants, watched them paint water color paintings with their trunks, and even play musical instruments...and it wasn't even too much of a hokey tourist thing...considering we had to take a local bus to the middle of nowhere to get there. We became just as much of an attraction at the elephant bathing as the elephants were, because of our skin color. We had our picture taken about five times.

The other day we went to a hokey tourist safari park where we did see lions and tigers and payed $7 to hold little bear cubs for a photo. We thought it was mean to take the baby away from it's mama, but still couldn't resist holding the furry little fellas.

This blog posting is about to end though, because the man here in the Internet cafe is doing some weird coughing noises, and I think it's best if we go find ourselves some of those green medical masks that everyone wears here in Asia.

Millions of Monkeys!

We LOVE Hong Kong. We are leaving today to go back to Thailand, and are sad to leave this beautiful place, as well as our dear friend, Emily.

The pictures below are of us at the jade and pearl market. Laura is with Mei - the lady who supplies the Colonial Relief Society girls with all of their pearls...small world! There is also a picture of the three of us at a dessert cafe. The picture at the bottom is of the Young Single Adults in Emily's ward. We took a hike up a mountain to Lion's Rock, where we saw a magnificent view of the city.

Church was amazing with these same (and more) people. Today in Sunday School we had people from the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Canada, Korea, NYC, California, Utah, Virginia, Nepal, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Spain and Nigeria! 2 Nephi 31:3 was quoted, which seemed applicable!

Our FAVORITE though would have to be the monkeys. After hiking, we headed over to Monkey Mountains where we were told that we would see numerous of monkeys. We weren't disappointed. As soon as we got off the bus, we notice that a "herd" of them was crossing the overpass to come to the other side of the street that we were on. We walked on a footpath, and literally saw monkeys EVERYWHERE. Some would follow us, which made Laura sort of nervous. This is the reason we don't have many good pictures - because Denise's camera died, and Laura was carrying a largish stick most of the time(to protect Denise, and the others of course.) We LOVED them. A lot were carrying babies on their backs, or underneath their stomachs. A few were eating lollipops, that other people on the path had given them.

The most amusing monkey incident occurred though, on the other hike when we saw a few monkeys as well. A Chinese man came hiking up the trail carrying a portable boom box device that was blaring Chinese opera music. He saw us watching the monkeys and pulled out a little slingshot, gave us a sly grin, and shot the sling shot in the direction of the monkey. We felt bad for the monkey who scampered off, but found the whole incident to be rather amusing!

Currently Denise is devising a way that we can take one on the plane with us back home for a pet. We have some Tylenol PM, so that just might do the trick...

More from Hong Kong...

Island of the Pink Dolphins

We are in Hong Kong this week visiting our friend Emily, who is working for the Church here for a year assignment. (See Emily below eating her frog legs and rice.) She is the perfect hostess, and Hong Kong is the perfect city. There are many reasons that we love it, first and foremost is that we saw a whole bunch of endangered pink dolphins the other day on our boat ride that cost us $2.50 -- including our generous tip. Please see photo at the bottom of this page...and NO those are not the pink dolphins, but a self-portrait of us speeding back to the island. (Please ignore Laura's $1 sunglasses, and Denise's comb over.)

The night scene above is from the Kowloon waterfront where we watched the "Festival of Lights." This is a nightly production in which lights on the buildings across the water are synched to music. Pretty cool.

Today we visited the Hong Kong temple for a session - a definite highlight!

Hong Kong!

The Movies

Thailand has a lot of very large and plush theatres. We decided we definitely had to go to one when we learned that before every movie, a tribute to the King is played on the screen, and all patrons in the theatre are required to stand to show their respect.

Thailand LOVES their King. Everywhere you go, there are pictures of the King - HUGE ones on the roads, on billboards, in people's homes, in taxi cars - you name it! The tribute before the movie was set to music and lasted for a good few minutes. At the end of the tribute the screen read, "We Love Our King, Long Live the King."

Anyway, as we were buying our tickets, we noticed this advertisement for a Thai film that is just in theatres. It is a love story about a man with three arms. We had our friends Ben and Wyatt (and Denise's arm, recreate the cardboard cut out.) We think it will be a grammy winner, for sure.

All the glitters...just really might be gold

Okay, sorry we have been lame on the posts. We haven't had much internet access recently. But we will attempt to catch up within the next few days. Starting with the Grand Palace. It is hard to do the Grand Palace justice with pictures, because it is so magnificent and large...but here are a few. It is the probably the most famous attraction within the city of Bangkok itself.

Visiting Teaching?!

Yesterday I had the interesting experience of going to the immigration prison to visit a Nepalese family who is LDS and has been imprisoned there for eight months. The ward goes to visit them to take them food and sanitary supplies, since all they receive to eat at the prison is porridge.

I met up with Cecille - a hilarious woman from the ward who is French. She is French in every way. She greeted me with a big wet kiss on the cheek, and then told me that she hadn't eaten breakfast yet. We went across the street to 7-11 where Cecille bought a Danish for herself and sweets and chocolate milk "for the children."

We then went to the prison where we learned that we were fifteen minutes too late to visit the family. I started praying HARD - while Cecille sat and argued with the guard. She was VERY persistent. The kicker was when she told the guard that she knows the King of Thailand, (not exactly sure that's true) but eventually we got it.

It was worse than I thought. The prisoners were lined up behind double iron gates like cattle. I walked down the row, and asked "Mormon?" to a sweet looking husband, wife and teenage daughter. They nodded excitedly. I shoulda known - the dad had a Annapolis MD 5k t-shirt on. The daughter and mom were separated from the dad by a bar. In the prison they are separated in different cells because of gender, so the only time they get to see their husband/father is when someone in the ward comes to visit. Cecille kept telling them that if she were there she would be kissing her husband - and then she would do these dramatic kissing actions. This part was VERY amusing.

We were there for an hour. We talked to them for a bit, and then let them talk to each other. It was so upsetting/maddening to me that they have to be there. When we left I turned around three times to wave to them, trying not to cry. They had a look of longing on their faces - but smiled and waved back all three times.

On a lighter note - I think I may be more French than I thought - since kissing and Danish's are two things I really enjoy. ;)

Dedicated to Kelli ~ the Florist~

Our friends Pim and Jan took us to the flower market at midnight on Friday night. Apparently the flower market is busy all night long, because that's when the deliveries are made. It was just picking up when we arrived. Flowers were EVERYWHERE. They use orchids for funerals, so we saw a lot of those. You could purchase about thirty long-stemmed roses for about $1.75 - great deal for Valentine's Day.

Whoa Whoa Check out Wat Po!!

The other day we went to check out Wat Po and the enormous golden Buddha that sits inside. It is the largest reclining Buddha in the world. It is 150 feet tall (and waaay longer in length.) The feet are huge, and have images of Buddha all over the bottom of them, engraved with mother of pearl. Speaking of feet...a massage therapy school is housed on the grounds, so after viewing the wat, we endulged in heavenly 45 minute foot massages, for a pricey $13.

Scalded Entrails Spicy Salad Value Meal

This bucket o' chicken rivals KFC. The other night at dinner we went to a great little street side restaurant. The following items were served on the menu (word for word...we copied it down):

Deep Fried Chicken's Joint
Chicken's Ovary with Bean Curry
Boiled Ant's eggs Sour and Spicy Soup
Scalded Cow's Stomach with Chili Dip
Assorted Entrails including:
Scalded Entrails Spicy Salad
Grilled Entrails/Spicey Sliced Entrails/Entrail Soup

It was almost like Denise was at work at the hospital. Learning all of the vital organs.

Ron Paul Revolution

Yesterday on the way to FHE we stopped by the mall, and were amused to find that Ron Paul is campaigning in Bangkok. We wish him the best of luck.

It has been interesting because we have been asked more about U.S. politics than anything else. As we are typing we just heard on the BBC news something about a spat between Obama and Hillary...what's new?!

We attended Family Night (for church) last night at the American Embassy compound where a diplomat from our ward lives. It was a lovely place, and we were all very happy to receive brownies and ice cream for dessert. It was the first real kitchen we have seen in Thailand (it is cheaper to eat out here, than to cook - meals cost about $1.) Our new found single adult friends from church include two Brits, a Swede, a Venezuelan and a Bear Lake-ian (from Utah).

Size 40 in Asia

Well...we have been here for about five days, and are just barely figuring things out not only in the world of blogging, but also in the city of Bangkok.

After a seemingly never-ending flight from SLC to Bangkok, we were picked up by our hostesses (the girls who run the school) Jan and Pim. We stayed a couple of nights at Pim's parents, because the air conditioner in our apartment was broken. Saturday Pim's dad, who is the branch president, took us to a huge market. There they sold everything from squid on a stick to pet squirrels on leashes.

The following day we went to church with Pim. Denise fretted over whether her shoes were dressy enough or not. She needn't have - because all shoes are removed before entering. Laura prayed that she would be able to understand at least something from the meeting - her prayers were answered when both were given earphones and had the whole meeting interpreted by a missionary.

Supposedly the shopping in Southeast Asia is incredible. Our first experience yesterday told us that we are definitely on the "larger" end of the size spectrum. The guidebook tells us that the "attendants will bluntly steer us towards slimming colors and sizes that will fit our sturdy frames." We had hoped that this would mean that we will find even better bargains, because of the gargantuam feet we have compared with most Thais....but we came up barefooted yesterday, when the attendant told us he didn't have shoes large enough to fit our size 40 Cinderella step-sister tosies....